Saturday, January 26, 2013

Cliff Burnstein, whose firm Q Prime also manages Metallica and The Black Keys, told Rolling Stone magazine that the LA band signed on as the Sunday night headliner with only an hour to spare.

"We've been in talks for months," he revealed. "It goes down to the wire. It's a negotiation."

You were agreeing to pay a pop concert in return for an almost certainly oversized cheque. It's not like you were trying to get a group of Nuns out of a hostage situation before the end of a ceasefire.

And what of suggestions that, perhaps, the Peppers might be a bit too vintage for Coachella?

Burnstein also hit out at reports the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who played Coachella in 2003 and 2007, were no longer suited to play the festival. "We'll be right in the target demo for Coachella. It's surprising, but it's true", he said.

I suspect Burnstein is confusing the demographics of the people who pay for the tickets with those of the people who actually use them.

Ed was voted worst-dressed man of 2012 by GQ mag which has put a bit of pressure on him.

He said: “I’m going to be wearing a very posh suit to the Grammys.

“And if I run into GQ I’m just going to stick it to them. I’ve got a proper tailored suit made for me.

“If I want to be smart, I can be smart, I just really don’t care.”

Ah, so that is the type of "not caring" which involves not just going out and buying an expensive suit, but constantly talking about it and GQ.

Is it wise for Ed to put on his interview suit, though: isn't looking like he's just nipped out for a pint of milk and a Crunchie at the heart of his appeal? Stick him in a shiny two-piece, and there's a risk America is going to think "I see Mick Hucknall's been moisturising."

The Wanted pay tribute to the Beatles in this new alternate video for "I Found You."

It's a "tribute" as in "quick and cheap idea of sticking them in a studio and having some screaming fans, a bit like The Beatles, but equally a bit like how even that show where B*Witched come back will be".

Does it matter? Not really, in the sense that Obama was only miming the inauguration anyway - the actual swearing had been done the day before, and if Barack was just opening and closing his mouth for a performance he'd done earlier.

On the other hand: what was all that 'pulling the earpiece out' business? If she'd been singing live, that would have been a brilliant moment - "Beyonce doesn't need the monitors".

Instead, it turns out to have been a bit of empty theatre.

So Beyonce didn't nail it. She was just very good at using a shortcut. She No More Nailed it.

Hey, those cutting-edge types on the cusp of the future down at the NME have announced the shortlist for their 2013 awards. Strap yourselves into your most-firmly secured seats, straightsville, because here's the alternative to the Brits. Which crazy, left-field act is doing best, NME?

The Rolling Stones lead this years' nods with nominations in four categories ('Best Live Band,' 'Best Book', 'Music Moment of The Year', 'Best Music Film')

Really?

Oh.

It's interesting that three of these categories are faffy, non-core categories (best music film? Is that even a popular enough category to warrant giving a prize?). The nomination for best live band, though, is one in the eye for everyone who thought that giving it to Muse every fucking year was the most conservative award thinking ever.

To be fair, Tame Imapala and Haim have also both got four nominations - but it's notable that even although they scored the same number as The Rolling Stones, editorially, the NME decided the Rolling Stones were "leading".

Also surprising is that David Bowie's Where Are We Now is shortlisted in the best music video category. It only came out two weeks ago. Given that many of the categories were open for voting back before Christmas, how does that work, exactly? What exactly is the rule on qualifying period here?

It's not clear if NME is impressed, or allowing its embarrassment to leak out here, either, when they talk about how well MIA has done:

M.I.A. is also up for four awards - ('Best Track', 'Best Music Video', 'Best Dancefloor Anthem', 'Best Twitter' despite only releasing one single since the last NME Awards.

Here's the full shortlist:
Best British Band supported by SONOS
Arctic Monkeys
Kasabian
The Vaccines
Biffy Clyro
The Maccabees
The Cribs

Best TV Show
Breaking Bad
Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy
Fresh Meat
Sherlock
The Thick Of It
Doctor Who

Best Music Film
Searching For Sugar Man
LCD Soundsystem: 'Shut Up And Play The Hits'
Hit So Hard : The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel
Marley
The Rolling Stones: 'Crossfire Hurricane'
Led Zeppelin: 'Celebration Day'

After downsizing to 113 stores in the past year and a half, [HMV Canada's Nick] Williams said HMV Canada is now preparing to re-enter some of the markets it left, particularly in malls.

He credits the retailer's perseverance in the Canadian market to a decision to abandon several low-margin entertainment products, like video games and technology hardware like tablets and iPod docking stations, in favour of higher margin branded products like superhero T-shirts and coffee mugs branded with rock bands like Kiss.

The shift in selection helped HMV Canada deliver strong holiday shopping sales, with $65.4 million of sales over the period, coming in better than its $63.5 million holiday revenue target.

Hmm. Green Lantern t-shirts and novelty mugs. Doesn't HMV in the UK already sell a lot of that sort of tat already?

Merlin's deal with MySpace expired about a year ago, and yet, oddly, over 100 of its labels have still got their music being used by the site. The New York Times reports that MySpace is blaming its members:

Neda Azarfar, a spokeswoman for Myspace, said the company had decided not to renew its contract with Merlin, and that if songs from its member labels were still on the site, “they were likely uploaded by users” and would be removed if requested by the label.

Really? MySpace "users" did it? Why not blame something more likely to actually exist, like "a unicorn did it"?

But if we accept that Azarfar is guessing correctly - and wouldn't you have checked, rather than guessing, if it had been you? - isn't this a pretty terrible line for MySpace to be putting out to the music industry partners it desperately needs to court?

MySpace: a place where people are sticking any old copyright-breeching material online, and we don't really keep an eye on what they're doing.

Rachael Mills, from Bournemouth, tweeted: "Can't believe in tweenies on cbeebies today a character was impersonating saville in parody of totp!!! What is the bbc thinking?"

They even found a "concerned father" called Mark Roberts - there's no other context to explain who he is, or why his concern should concern us more than anyone else's - to express his concern at greater length:

Concerned father Mark Roberts said: "The complete lack of quality control the BBC have over their programming was absolutely sickening.

"The song he introduced just makes everything worse. Somebody at the BBC should get fired for this.

"The song title was just the icing on the cake of inappropriateness."

Concerned father Mark Roberts is right - the song Max-as-Jim introduced was called 'Ha! I Am Hiding My Sexual Offences In Plain Sight!'.

Hang on, no, it was One Finger, One Thumb, which I think only has sexual connotations if you want it to.

Now, clearly, it's a bit unfortunate that this went out. But anyone who thinks for a second or two will probably concede that it would have been very unlikely that anyone would think they'd need to double-check every ten year-old programme for preschool kids to make sure there's no impression of people who turned out to be sex offender - although that episode of Rosie And Jim where Jim pretends to be Cyril Smith might need a quick lookover from someone at ITV. And the paperwork for the episode would be unlikely to list every single joke - or, in this case, "joke" - featured.

Unfortunate, but... where exactly is the harm? Presumably anyone watching Cbeebies would be unlikely to see Max wearing the wig and think "that's the now-known paedophile Jimmy Savile, so presumably this programme is trying to make me think that people like that are okay to hang out with".

Come to that, even in 2001, it's unlikely that any of the target audience would have had a clue who Max was supposed to be. Savile's run on Top Of The Pops had ended in 1984 and Jim'll Fix It had stopped ten years later. Presumably the Savile impersonation was included solely as a little joke for any parents watching with their kids - although even some of the parents would have been too young to recall Savile as a Pops presenter.

In 2001, it was a reference which would have gone over the heads of the kids, and only been picked up by older people watching. It's no different in 2013, except what once would have been a small joke is now an ugly coincidence.

Yes, it probably shouldn't have gone out, but if you think the main child protection issue that has fallen out of the Savile story is making sure children never see any reference to the man, you might well be directing your concern in the wrong direction.